What the Sphinx Forgot to Ask

The goldfish had outlived them all.

Elena watched it swim in its bowl on the kitchen counter—orange and oblivious, the same fish they'd bought the week after their wedding. Seven years later, Mark was gone, the apartment was in boxes, and the fish just kept swimming, its mouth opening and closing in silent repetition.

She swallowed her morning vitamin with a gulp of tap water. One a day, even when everything else falls apart. The routine felt almost obscene in its normalcy.

Her phone buzzed. Padel match at 6. She'd signed up for lessons as something to do on Tuesday evenings when Mark started working late. When he stopped coming home at all. Now she showed up alone, her racquet bag slung over her shoulder like armor, playing doubles with strangers who asked polite questions she couldn't answer honestly.

She walked to the bedroom to finish packing. Mark's hat still hung on the back of the door—a battered fedora he'd worn to their first Valentine's dinner, ridiculous and endearing. He'd forgotten it when he left. Or maybe he'd left it on purpose. She'd never asked.

On the dresser, the miniature sphinx they'd bought in Cairo watched her with painted eyes. *Ask me the right question,* the sphinx seemed to say, *and I'll tell you something true.* But what was the right question? Not *why did he leave?* Not *was she enough?* Not *what happens next?*

The sphinx had no answers for a riddle she couldn't articulate.

Her phone buzzed again. A text from someone she'd met at padel last week. *Coffee after the match?*

Elena looked at the hat. The sphinx. The fish. The vitamin bottle.

*Yes,* she typed.

Maybe the sphinx's riddle wasn't about questions. Maybe it was about learning to live with not knowing, about finding small yeses in the wreckage. The fish kept swimming. She would too.